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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Thursday 24th November 2011 | Osh
Can David Fincher’s American remake live up to the Swedish original?
Talk about a tough act to follow. 2009's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo veered dangerously close to perfection, combining a gripping murder mystery with unexpectedly shocking torture scenes. The Swedish thriller went on to snag a BAFTA, stun critics and help launch Noomi Rapace as the next big thing. So universally agreed was the films brilliance that when plans were announced for a Hollywood remake, not even the presence of an A-list director (David Fincher), an established action movie hero (Daniel Craig) and a hotly-tipped newcomer (Rooney Mara) could stop people from asking: “...what's the point?”. But this is David Fincher, the man behind Fight Club and The Social Network. The point is this: you're in safe hands when Mr. Fincher's involved.
Assuming the originals chilly cinematography and tense atmosphere from the off, Fincher's update is a faithful one, most importantly keeping its killer premise almost completely intact: When publicly-disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) is hired to solve the mystery of a girl whose been missing for 40 years, he quickly becomes drawn into her families lurid history, eventually joining forces with Lisbeth Salander, a mysterious computer hacker, to help solve the case.
It's a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie and the film keeps you guessing and enthralled throughout its surprisingly long running time. But what separates it all from your favourite episode of Poirot is the the violence. While not exactly gratuitous (the Sawfilms have set that bar pretty high), it's certainly disturbing. A subplot involving Lisbeth's depraved parole officer yields plenty of distressing moments, becoming all the more effective thanks to Mara's exceptional performance as Lisbeth. Granted, the character itself is so electric that it's a pretty hard one to mess up, but the pressure on Mara to match Rapace's tour de force performance can't be underestimated. Fiery, magnetic and occasionally sexy, you can see why Fincher was so insistent on casting her. A perfectly good remake, then. And with a story this good, why wouldn't you want relive it?
Talk about a tough act to follow. 2009's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo veered dangerously close to perfection, combining a gripping murder mystery with unexpectedly shocking torture scenes. The Swedish thriller went on to snag a BAFTA, stun critics and help launch Noomi Rapace as the next big thing. So universally agreed was the films brilliance that when plans were announced for a Hollywood remake, not even the presence of an A-list director (David Fincher), an established action movie hero (Daniel Craig) and a hotly-tipped newcomer (Rooney Mara) could stop people from asking: “...what's the point?”. But this is David Fincher, the man behind Fight Club and The Social Network. The point is this: you're in safe hands when Mr. Fincher's involved.
Assuming the originals chilly cinematography and tense atmosphere from the off, Fincher's update is a faithful one, most importantly keeping its killer premise almost completely intact: When publicly-disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) is hired to solve the mystery of a girl whose been missing for 40 years, he quickly becomes drawn into her families lurid history, eventually joining forces with Lisbeth Salander, a mysterious computer hacker, to help solve the case.
It's a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie and the film keeps you guessing and enthralled throughout its surprisingly long running time. But what separates it all from your favourite episode of Poirot is the the violence. While not exactly gratuitous (the Sawfilms have set that bar pretty high), it's certainly disturbing. A subplot involving Lisbeth's depraved parole officer yields plenty of distressing moments, becoming all the more effective thanks to Mara's exceptional performance as Lisbeth. Granted, the character itself is so electric that it's a pretty hard one to mess up, but the pressure on Mara to match Rapace's tour de force performance can't be underestimated. Fiery, magnetic and occasionally sexy, you can see why Fincher was so insistent on casting her. A perfectly good remake, then. And with a story this good, why wouldn't you want relive it?
